I recently upgraded my mother in law's old record player by replacing the old cartridge with an Ortofon 2M blue and using a Cambridge Audio Duo for phono stage.
And I have to say it's really not as bad as I expected. the noise floor is very dismissable if you're not listening using headphones. distortion is quite okay if you aligned your cartridge correctly. And most importantly, your ears just get used to the flaws and filter them out in a minute or two.
the bass is quite mangled though, and so are transient attacks in general. Kind of hard to imagine someone in the 70s and 80s working hard for a tight bass response.
the only interesting thing that after the upgrade is that I have some decent mains leakage, ~50 Hz at -60 dBFS, not audible at all. Perhaps i should ground the record player to the phono stage?
Overall it was quite an awesome history lesson and experience for the young Gen Z that I am, kudos to everyone who had to deal with this shit for a big chunk of their lives!
And I have to say it's really not as bad as I expected. the noise floor is very dismissable if you're not listening using headphones. distortion is quite okay if you aligned your cartridge correctly. And most importantly, your ears just get used to the flaws and filter them out in a minute or two.
the bass is quite mangled though, and so are transient attacks in general. Kind of hard to imagine someone in the 70s and 80s working hard for a tight bass response.
the only interesting thing that after the upgrade is that I have some decent mains leakage, ~50 Hz at -60 dBFS, not audible at all. Perhaps i should ground the record player to the phono stage?
Overall it was quite an awesome history lesson and experience for the young Gen Z that I am, kudos to everyone who had to deal with this shit for a big chunk of their lives!